Women who are trafficked into the U.S. are often kept secluded and isolated to avoid suspicion. (Nadia Garcia/Borderzine.com)

Citizen awareness is critical to the prevention of human trafficking

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EL PASO – The car headlights flashed past the windows of a farmer’s house out on a rural road in far west Texas on a sweltering, summer night bringing him outside to find out what the unusual midnight activity is all about. In the distance, he saw the car slowly approach a trailer parked in a desolate area and a man get out and open the trailer. “It has got to be a drug deal going on out there,” the farmer told Border Patrol officials in Hudspeth County, approximately 84 miles east of El Paso, Texas. Days later, Border Patrol officials broke into the trailer and found five Honduran women, dirty and barely clothed, shackled to cots. Between 18,000 and 20,000 persons are trafficked into the U.S. each year with the majority of cases involving sex trafficking of women and children.

El Paso is one of six sectors where Operation Streamline is enforced. (Christina Marie Duran/Borderzine.com)

High-cost zero-tolerance strategy shows little effect on illegal immigration

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EL PASO — The U.S. government started Operation Streamline a “zero-tolerance” border enforcement strategy, at the Del Rio sector in Texas in 2005 in an attempt to stem the flow of millions of undocumented Mexicans who leave their families and homes every year to cross the border into the U.S.

Operation Streamline (OS) set tougher penalties for illegal immigration. First time offenders serve two to three days in jail while they wait for a trial. These undocumented immigrants are then left with a criminal record and repeat offenders can end up serving several years in prison. “My research continues to show a negative effect within the operation,” said Pia Orrenius, a labor economist from the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. “The main motivation for these illegal immigrants to attempt to cross over is money and the pursuit of a better way of living.”

Orrenius visited The University of Texas at El Paso on Sep.